Waiting for Senator Fulbright

My first reaction to Senator Rand Paul’s foreign policy address at the Heritage Foundation last week was that it was about time a U.S. Senator of one of the two major political parties would articulate traditional American principles of non-interventionism in a clear and concise way.

That Paul is also a Republican and a self-proclaimed conservative/libertarian political figure who is willing to challenge the neo-conservative interventionist orientation that has dominated the GOP foreign-policy agenda in recent years gave me a sense of hope that the Junior Senator from Kentucky would succeed in igniting a serious debate on America’s place in the world today.

It was also original and somewhat cool that he relied on both the renowned diplomatic historian George Kennan and President Ronald Reagan in preparing a foreign policy manifesto.

I didn’t know Kennan; Kennan wasn’t a good friend of mine; but I’m sure that Kennan (who died at the age of 101) would probably be turning in his grave if anyone would have suggested that he and Reagan had anything in common politically speaking, and especially when it came to foreign policy.

As Kennan saw it, “Reagan viewed the world through dangerous simplicities, not realist subtleties,” according to his biographer John Lewis Gaddis (George F. Kennan: An American Life) who added that Kennan, an intellectual elitist, a snobbish, and to extent, a bigoted WASP, suspicious of the masses, and with no great admiration to modernity–he even decried the invention of the car–”distrusted both happiness and California” and “probably would have distrusted Reagan, even if the president had tried to win his trust” (although before his death Kennan admitted that Reagan had helped end the Cold War).

In terms of his personal background and temperament, education, career, and political philosophy, including his distrust of the general public and his belief that a strong executive and members of the establishment should determine and implement foreign policy, Kennan and his views were the antithesis to what libertarianism and especially the Tea Party stand for, e.g., that the Republican-controlled House as opposed to President Obama decides whether to go to war with Iran.

It also seems to me that Senator Paul needs to revisit the issue of containment in general, and the way it applies to the threat of radical Islamic terrorism (and Iran), in particular. While Kennan did draw the outlines of what became to be the containment strategy vis-a-vis the Soviet Union, he opposed the militaristic and messianic overtones that dominated its implementation by Republican and Democratic administrations.

Hence, Kennan who cautioned against adopting the notion that there was a monolithic Communist Bloc and stressed that the policies of communist regimes were driven more by national interests than by ideology, would be horrified by the idea that seems to be advanced by Senator Paul that America is now facing a global threat from radical Islam or terrorism which requires Washington to pursue an aggressive containment strategy. The Muslim World is certainly not about to evolve into a Caliphate under the rule of Al Qaeda with the military capabilities of the Soviet Union. If anything, Kennan like many realists today would be in favor of the more limited and targeted approach in responding to terrorism that the Obama Administration has been pursuing.

In any case, translating the principles of non-interventionism into concrete foreign policy and national security prescriptions requires a lot of work beyond one or two speeches and a few sound bites. And while I am not familiar with Republican politics in Kentucky and I have no idea whether Senator Rand is planning a run for the presidency in 2016, I find it very difficult to imagine that the constituencies that are now the driving force in Republican Party and Tea-Party movement would support any candidate who is committed to a platform that calls for reassessing America’s military and diplomatic commitment in the Middle East and elsewhere.

When Jim Webb was elected as the Democratic Senator from Virginia, running on an anti-Iraq-War platform I was hoping that perhaps he would become the new William Fulbright, the legendary Senator from Arkansas, a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who became a leading critic of the Vietnam War and the Senate’s leading expert on foreign policy (and like Kennan was also very conservative when it came to social issues).

Unfortunately, it didn’t happen with Senator Webb, and I am not sure now that Senator Rand is going to be the next Fulbright. That would require him to shelve any plans he had to run for the presidency, gather around him a “brain trust” of original strategic thinkers, and take on the foreign policy establishment in both parties from his position of power on the major policy issues. For some reason I don’t think that will happen.

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8 Responses to Waiting for Senator Fulbright

“Hence, Kennan who cautioned against adopting the notion that there was a monolithic Communist Bloc and stressed that the policies of communist regimes were driven more by national interests than by ideology”

Dr. Hadar, I always credited Zbigniew Brzezinski with first articulating the idea that there was no monolithic Communist bloc in Eastern Europe. I was in college in the 60′s and first became acquainted with Brzezinski’s ideas when taking a course on foreign relations taught by a famous professor. While I am familiar with Kennan, of course, I have not read Gaddis’ book and can say honestly that I have no idea whether he came up with that idea before Brzezinski and Brzezinski merely refined Kennan’s thoughts or whether Kennan simply accepted and promoted Brzezinski’s ideas. Just curious.

“William Fulbright, the legendary Senator from Arkansas, a long-time member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee who became a leading critic of the Vietnam War and the Senate’s leading expert on foreign policy”

“gather around him a “brain trust” of original strategic thinkers” – uhhhh, I don’t think we should look for that. And if Senator Paul surprises me and does that, he’ll be primaried. Kentucky is not, shall we say, open to a lot of original thinking in any realm. Recall the partially-tax-funded Creation Museum and Theme Park.

We should be cheering someone saying just this and not expect or demand the impossible; given the “party” he’s chosen to play in.
If others hear his message; so much the better. Let’s hope so- but even if he is a lone voice in the wilderness, at least he is not (so far) going in the same directions as Ted Cruz….

1) It counteracts ‘the Narrative’ which has been put forth by the MSM, and even in this publication, that today’s Republicans are the heirs of Calhoun, or something. The actual heirs of Calhoun remained in the Senate, most with a ‘D’ after their name, long after the Civil Rights era. In Fulbright’s case, he went on to mentor the Clintons.

2) More directly to the point, the particularism shown by a segregationist, or an alleged ‘anti-semite’ like Kenan(more likely just a high WASP chauvinist) , is highly corollated not wanting to get involved in the quarrels of others, not wanted to spread the gospel of ‘liberal democracy’ and neoliberal economics to remote places on the globe.